The criminal felon in the White House said he won't touch Social Security. Now he's raping it.
Those idiots who voted for Trump should know by now that he lied to them just to get elected. Everything he is doing today was NOT in his campaign. He is completely ignoring everything he said and promised in his campaign. He never talked about annexing Canada or Greenland or the Panama Canal. He said he will not be gutting social administration. He did not say he wants to undermine Europe and NATO to the benefit of Vladimir Putin. He did not say he wants to ethnically cleanse Palestine.
On Social Security, he is starting by dismissing tens of thousands of its employees. He wants to eliminate applications by phone, as if the Internet is any safer. Pretty soon, he will invoke some ambiguous unknown law to declare Social Security insolvent and must therefore be privatized. Instead of dealing with a reliable not-for-profit federal agency, you'll have to deal with profiteers and financial hoodlums like the health insurance mafia. A privatized social security entity will deny benefits, reduce benefits, and act according to a "Deny, Defend, Depose" strategy aiming at increasing profits and shareholders dividends.
Social Security is NOT a Ponzi Scheme. It is a contract between the government and the citizens who pay a social security tax all their working life, with every paycheck, and the government gives them back that money when they retire.
The fact that the contract entails the younger working force funding the Social Security lockbox so that elderly retirees can benefit does not diminish the fundamental right of US citizens to retire in dignity with money they invested with the government. And Social Security must remain a government-run program and not be doled out to Trump's billionaire corporate friends who will gamble it and bankrupt it. Imagine if Social Security was in the hands of private finance companies during the 2007-2008 financial collapse: It would have been a catastrophe for retirees. =====================================================
Opinion
If you're not scared about Social Security, you should be | Opinion
John Hale and Terri Hale
Tue, March 25, 2025
The Social Security program is 90 years old come August. About 70 million Americans currently receive a monthly benefit. An estimated 185 million Americans pay into the system and plan to receive benefits someday.
They depend on it to be there for them. Recent events raise serious questions whether it will be.
Here’s a recap:
Elon Musk's efforts to discredit Social Security
Elon Musk claimed that millions of Americans over the age of 100, 200 or even 300 are getting monthly Social Security benefits. Those claims have been debunked by the news media and by the Social Security Administration.
The president amplified those false claims in a speech to a joint session of Congress, saying they indicated “incompetence” in the Social Security program.
Musk called Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."
Leadership of the Social Security Administration in turmoil
Social Security Administration branch in Burbank, Calif.
The Social Security Administration is on its third acting commissioner since November. The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday to consider Frank Bisignano to lead the SSA.
The acting commissioner who left in November is raising alarms about a potential “systems collapse” and “eventual interruption of benefits.”
Another commissioner, who left in February, did so because she refused to allow Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) team to access top-security data bases that contain personal information on almost every American.
The current acting commissioner, a mid-level Social Security employee elevated by the president, had been placed on administrative leave by prior agency leaders due to allegations of “multiple inappropriate actions” dealing with the Musk team.
The goal? Privatize Social Security.
The Social Security Administration is in a death spiral. Its workforce has dwindled from a high of 80,000 in the 1980s to a projected 50,000 this year. While resources have shrunk dramatically, workloads have ballooned largely due to the retirement of baby boomers and increasing life spans.
The result is poorer service to the public: less access to humans for personal assistance, longer telephone wait times, delays getting appointments at local offices, more difficulty in getting clear answers to non-routine questions, unacceptable holdups in getting decisions on applications for disability benefits, etc.
What the heck is happening here?
We believe there’s a plan at work: All the disruption at Social Security is designed to cause the program to eventually collapse.
Protesters rally for Social Security on March 22, 2025, in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Here’s the scenario: Continued declines in service lead to public frustration and anger. Citizens come to believe what they’re being told: The government can’t do anything well. People lose faith in the system and become ready to accept radical change.
In other words, break it to fix it.
And the fix? Privatize the system. Let banks and financial firms run it. Turn Social Security contributions into investments in stocks, bonds, crypto or whatever. End guaranteed benefits and instead have every American responsible for their investment return, with some people succeeding and some failing.
President George W. Bush wanted to do this back in 2005. His plan failed because Americans liked Social Security and they had confidence in it. It also failed because enough members of Congress were independent-minded and wouldn’t go along.
Times are certainly different now. But this train can and should be stopped.
Iowa’s members of Congress must stand up and speak out.
They should call for hearings, get answers and insist on greater transparency and accountability from DOGE and leaders of the Social Security Administration.
Our elected representatives will only take those actions if constituents tell them to.
Advocacy organizations for workers, older Iowans and people with disabilities should raise their voices. Iowans of all ages should call, email and visit their representative’s offices. Express concerns. Ask if they support the existing Social Security system and what they will do to improve it. Insist on clear answers.
Remind them while millionaires and billionaires may not depend on Social Security, ordinary people leading real lives do.
Frustrated? Scared? Then make some noise. It’s time to end the chaos and make Social Security secure again.
John and Terri Hale own The Hale Group, advocating for older Iowans and people with disabilities. John worked for the Social Security Administration for 25 years in its Baltimore headquarters, Kansas City regional office, and in multiple Iowa field offices. Reach them at terriandjohnhale@gmail.com. This column originally appeared in the Des Moines Register.
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